2016-11-23

8 REASONS WHY THE NWO HATES SYRIA; THE TRUTH AS TO WHY WE'RE IN SYRIA

And it's not for humanitarian reasons. This video needs to be circulated far and wide, so please do what you can to make that happen, and subscribe to SyrianGirlpartisan; links are below. Thank you.

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A military response to violence creates more violence. For real security, we need to stop climate change and work toward shared prosperity.

The recent 15th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade towers was a reminder of the terrible consequences when a nation ignores the lessons of history—including its own recent history. The U.S. military budget is a tragic example.

We currently spend roughly $598 billion on defense, which is more than the next seven biggest military spenders combined: China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan. This represents 54 percent of federal discretionary spending. In return, we get an ability to rapidly deploy conventional military power anywhere in the world.

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was the most devastating foreign-sourced attack on the United States since the War of 1812. It was carried out by a largely self-organized band of 19 religious fanatics of varied nationalities, affiliated with a small, dispersed, and loosely organized international network. We responded by invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. This led to hundreds of thousands of pointless deaths, destabilization of the Middle East, and a cost to the U.S. Treasury of some $4 trillion to $6 trillion.

I view all this in part through the lens of my experience as an Air Force captain during the Vietnam War. I briefed pilots headed for Vietnam on the psychological consequences of bombing civilian populations. I later served in the Defense Department’s office overseeing defense-related behavioral and social science research.

"We currently spend roughly $598 billion on defense, which is more than the next seven biggest military spenders combined." (Photo: Daniel Achim / iStock)

Debunking the Western Media’s Coverage of the War on Syria

The most prestigious newspaper in Peru is no more than another mouthpiece for power. But this shouldn´t surprise anyone familiar with mainstream media and its propagandistic role in our society.

Sadly, most people remain unaware of this reality and still approach this kind of media for understanding on the appalling problems of contemporary life. For them there are real news: you will find no such understanding in El Comercio.

We will consider the Syrian conflict because it’s an ongoing issue with massive coverage to analyze. The fact that mainstream media (MSM) in Peru, as elsewhere, import its articles from Big Media and their agencies around the world does not, of course, release them of the responsibility to verify everything they publish and therefore endorse.

Let´s imagine ourselves taking half an hour of our busy lives to seek information in MSM regarding Syria, in order to learn what’s been happening there for the last five years. What could be better than an article titled: “Seven questions to understand what is happening in Syria”? (elcomercio.pe, 09/24/16).

Air Strikes against Syria: Who are the War Criminals? Who is Supporting Al Qaeda? Russia or America?

America is coming to the rescue of Al Qaeda under a humanitarian mandate. The unspoken agenda is to undermine the Liberation of Aleppo.

The pretext and justification for these actions are based on America’s “responsibility to protect” (R2P) the “moderates” in Aleppo from Syrian and Russian attacks and bombing raids.

On October 3, the US State Department announced the suspension of bilateral relations with Russia pertaining to Syria (see document below), in response to which, France’s foreign Minister Jean Marc Ayrault was called upon to intermediate at the diplomatic level.

In turn, the Western media (including segments of the “Left” alternative media) went into overdrive, accusing Russia of killing innocent civilians, demonizing president Putin;, and more significantly ignoring the devastating impacts of Obama’s (2014-2016) fake “counterterrorism campaign” implying extensive and routine bombings of both Syria and Iraq over a period of more than two years.

'There's debate, even among people who believe in radical transparency, over the proper way to handle information like this'

A discussion between The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald and author and activist Naomi Klein tackled thorny privacy issues surrounding WikiLeaks' indiscriminate release of John Podesta's hackedemails in a 30-minute discussion published by The Intercept late Wednesday.

The Intercept has covered the release of thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager in depth, from exploring Clinton's speeches to Wall Street to examining the Clinton campaign's inner workings, and Greenwald had previously described the decision to cover the emails as "an easy call."

"I come to this as a journalist and author who has used leaked and declassified documents to do my work," Naomi Klein argued. (Photos: Adolfo Lujan, Gage Skidmore/flickr/cc)

Nuclear-armed drones? They may be closer than you think

The US military increasingly relies on drones to carry out a multitude of tasks, usually those deemed too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for manned missions. Most unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carry out routine reconnaissance. They also act as decoys, serve as communication relays, and even deliver light cargoes. But a growing number of drones are armed, such as the US Predator and MQ-9 Reaper, which are used mostly in tactical situations, such as targeting terrorists or insurgents.

Now military strategists are considering acquiring longer-range drones, especially those capable of carrying out nuclear missions. In 2015 there were reports that Russia was attempting to build nuclear-armed drone submarines.

It is a controversial strategy, given that it takes all the usual qualms there are about the increasing use of autonomous systems for war-fighting – the ethics of devolving too much authority to what are basically robots, susceptibility to hacking, etc. – but with much greater destructive power, given these systems’ range and payload. Nevertheless, it is at least worth considering.

If Nature Is Sacred, Capitalism Is Wicked

In his remarkable study When Corporations Rule the World, David Korten recounts a meeting he attended ahead of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The meeting was led, Korten notes, by indigenous leaders who were anxious about the direction in which global environmental policy was being steered. They were also, quite justifiably, worried about who was doing the steering.

"In the conference's preparatory meetings," Korten writes, "corporatists...proposed that to save nature we must put a price on her."

2016-11-18

Trump Distracting Bullshit (DBS)

Trump provided his action plan for the first 100-days. I'll start by mocking his preamble that say [his plan] "begins with restoring honesty, accountability and change to Washington."

Trump was dishonest about so many things on the campaign trial -- simple shit that was easy to expose --, so that one is out the window. He hasn't held himself accountable for his treatment of women, employees, or contractors. If his plans benefit the oligarchy, then it is hardly a change to Washington.

Of his six measures to "clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC":

Well, maybe not the greatest trick. But in a campaign full of cons, it has to rank close to the top. This was near the heart of Trump’s appeal to the disaffected and disempowered: Send me to Washington, and that “establishment” you’ve been hearing so much about? We’ll blow it up, send it packing, punch it right in the face, and when it’s over the government will finally be working for you again. And the people who voted for Trump bought it. After all, he’s no politician, right? He’s an outsider, a glass-breaker, a guy who can cut out the bull and get things done. Right?

But the idea that he would do this was based on a profound misunderstanding of what the establishment actually is, and who Donald Trump is.

President Trump

What would he do?

On the morning of January 20, 2017, the President-elect is to visit Barack Obama at the White House for coffee, before they share a limousine—Obama seated on the right, his successor on the left—for the ride to the Capitol, where the Inauguration will take place, on the west front terrace, at noon.

Donald Trump will be five months short of seventy-one. If he wins the election, he will be America’s oldest first-term President, seven months older than Ronald Reagan was at his swearing-in. Reagan used humor to deflect attention from his age—in 1984, he promised not to “exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Trump favors a different strategy: for months, his advisers promoted a theory that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who is sixty-eight, has a secret brain illness and is unable to climb stairs or sit upright without help, and, in speeches, Trump asked whether she had the “mental and physical stamina” for the Presidency.

The full spectacle of Trump’s campaign—the compulsive feuds and slurs, the detachment from established facts—has demanded so much attention that it is easy to overlook a process with more enduring consequences: his bureaucratic march toward actually assuming power. On August 1st, members of his transition team moved into 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue, a thirteen-story office building a block from the White House. The team is led by Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, and includes several of his political confidants, such as his former law partner William Palatucci. As of August, under a new federal program designed to accelerate Presidential transitions, Trump’s staff was eligible to apply for security clearances, so that they could receive classified briefings immediately after Election Day. They began the process of selecting Cabinet officials, charting policy moves, and meeting with current White House officials to plan the handover of the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and other agencies.

If Donald Trump Implements His Proposed Policies, We’ll See Him in Court

This morning, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, and the ACLU has a message for him.

President-elect Trump, as you assume the nation’s highest office, we urge you to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made. These include your plan to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression.

These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional. They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendments. If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers and millions of card-carrying members and supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.

One thing is certain: We will be eternally vigilant every single day of your presidency. And when you leave the Oval Office, we will do the same with your successor as we have done throughout our nearly 100 years of existence. The Constitution and the rule of law are stronger than any one person, and we will see to that. We will never waver.

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There’s more than one way for the establishment to yield power from this election.

The first path is obvious, direct and potentially deadly. A Hillary presidency will be surrounded by bitter people, and overt uses of power, along with war, increased taxes and thinly-veiled pay-for-play politics benefiting the billionaires who’ve bankrolled her rise to power.

The other path is less predictable, but possible just the perfect “magic formula” they need to get things flowing again.

2016-11-17

Greg Palast in Ohio on GOP Effort to Remove African Americans from Voter Rolls in Battleground State

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/8/greg_palast_in_ohio_on_gop

By: Democracy Now
Date: 2016-11-08

In an on-the-ground report from the battleground state of Ohio, investigative reporter Greg Palast has uncovered the latest in vote suppression tactics led by Republicans that could threaten the integrity of the vote in Ohio and North Carolina. On some polling machines, audit protection functions have been shut off, and African Americans and Hispanics are being scrubbed from the voter rolls through a system called Crosscheck. "It’s a brand-new Jim Crow," Palast says. "Today, on Election Day, they’re not going to use white sheets to keep way black voters. Today, they’re using spreadsheets."

Will an anti-voter-fraud program designed by one of Trump's advisers deny tens of thousands their right to vote in November?

When Donald Trump claimed, "the election's going to be rigged," he wasn't entirely wrong. But the threat was not, as Trump warned, from Americans committing the crime of "voting many, many times." What's far more likely to undermine democracy in November is the culmination of a decade-long Republican effort to disenfranchise voters under the guise of battling voter fraud. The latest tool: Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls.

The data is processed through a system called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which is being promoted by a powerful Republican operative, and its lists of potential duplicate voters are kept confidential. But Rolling Stone obtained a portion of the list and the names of 1 million targeted voters. According to our analysis, the Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races.

New Proof The Election Was Rigged Against Democrats!

http://leecamp.net/8138-2/

By: Lee Camp
Date: 2016-09-09

I just talked with two election experts – Greg Palast and Mark Crispin Miller – both incredibly accomplished in their fields. They agreed that this election was indeed rigged, and even though it has been Donald Trump spouting off about election rigging, perhaps he didn’t realize that the machinery was in place to rig it in HIS FAVOR. Greg Palast estimates that 1.1 MILLION people, mainly minorities, were knocked off the voting rolls in swing states using a system called “Cross Check.” That system accuses people of being “double voters” even though there is absolutely no proof. Cross Check is used in 30 Republican-led states. On top of that, Palast discovered that ballot protection software on the new Ohio voting machines was TURNED OFF. Election law expert Bob Fitrakis actually took Ohio to court last week to make sure the ballot protection software be turned ON. However, the judge sided with the state and said to leave it OFF on election day!

Professor Mark Crispin Miller agrees with Palast, saying that this election was stolen from the Democrats in a similar fashion to 2000 and 2004. And this is not coming from a fan of Hillary Clinton. Miller pointed out that Hillary Clinton is a neo-liberal who was intent on continuing to gut the social safety net and allowing the big banks to run wild. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a fair election. Furthermore, this is not just about the Presidency. This election theft impacts congressional and gubernatorial races as well.

I strongly believe that if Hillary Clinton – and the corporate Democrats in general – had ACTUALLY stood for something, then people would’ve had a reason to stand with them. This is why Bernie Sanders would’ve won this election easily. (He would’ve beat the margin that was stolen.) People believed what Bernie Sanders said, and that’s why he attracted an enthusiastic following. Even most Hillary voters didn’t take her at her word. Her actions proved that she supports trade deals, supports war, supports weapons contractors, supports oil and gas, and supports the big banks. If the left ever wants to win again, they need to start TRULY standing for something, rather than just feeding people lies while enriching themselves.

The two interviews mentioned above will air tomorrow night on Redacted Tonight: VIP. At 6pm ET tomorrow they’ll also be posted to YouTube.com/RedactedTonight.

Keep Fighting,
Lee

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The country will try it his way. Here’s what we’ve been asked to expect from his presidency.

In his first speech as president-elect, Donald Trump pledged to “be president for all Americans” and to work with supporters and critics alike to “unify our great country.” Now that it is apparent that?—?likely without a plurality of the votes?—?the nation has selected him to lead the country, it will now be up to him to deliver on his promises to “make America great again.”

With GOP majorities in both houses of Congress for at least the next two years and what will likely be a friendly Supreme Court, Americans will now see what happens trying things his way.

Here is what the Trump administration must now deliver to keep his promises:

Last week, Bayer, a transnational drug and pesticide company, secured funding for its $66 billion offer to acquire Monsanto, the world’s largest producer of agricultural seeds. This follows the announced $130 billion merger of chemical giants Dow and DuPont, and ChemChina’s proposed $43 billion purchase of the seed and pesticide firm Syngenta.

Bayer, DuPont, Dow, Monsanto, and Syngenta are five of the world’s six biggest pesticide and seed corporations. There are claims, which I find credible, that the “Big 6” and their products bear major responsibility for pesticide-resistant weeds and insects, and are implicated in impoverishment of small farmers, collapse of honeybee colonies, water pollution, and loss of biodiversity and soil fertility—all serious attacks on the common good. And similar consolidation continues in most every sector of the economy.

Read the Letter Aaron Sorkin Wrote His Daughter After Donald Trump Was Elected President

The Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Social Network and mastermind behind The West Wing reacts to Donald Trump being elected the 45th president of the United States in a moving letter written to his 15-year-old daughter Roxy and her mother Julia Sorkin.

Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from. That’s a terrible feeling for a father. I won’t sugarcoat it—this is truly horrible. It’s hardly the first time my candidate didn’t win (in fact it’s the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.

And it wasn’t just Donald Trump who won last night—it was his supporters too. The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate. Men who have no right to call themselves that and who think that women who aspire to more than looking hot are shrill, ugly, and otherwise worthy of our scorn rather than our admiration struck a blow for misogynistic shitheads everywhere. Hate was given hope. Abject dumbness was glamorized as being “the fresh voice of an outsider” who’s going to “shake things up.” (Did anyone bother to ask how? Is he going to re-arrange the chairs in the Roosevelt Room?) For the next four years, the President of the United States, the same office held by Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, F.D.R., J.F.K. and Barack Obama, will be held by a man-boy who’ll spend his hours exacting Twitter vengeance against all who criticize him (and those numbers will be legion). We’ve embarrassed ourselves in front of our children and the world.

And the world took no time to react. The Dow futures dropped 700 points overnight. Economists are predicting a deep and prolonged recession. Our NATO allies are in a state of legitimate fear. And speaking of fear, Muslim-Americans, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans are shaking in their shoes. And we’d be right to note that many of Donald Trump’s fans are not fans of Jews. On the other hand, there is a party going on at ISIS headquarters. What wouldn’t we give to trade this small fraction of a man for Richard Nixon right now?

Clerk Note: This was put in the publication queue before the election results were known.

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The Billionaire Pedophile Who Could Bring Down Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

Trump’s supporters have long wondered whether he’d use billionaire sicko Jeffrey Epstein as ammo against the Clintons—until a lurid new lawsuit accused The Donald of raping one of Epstein’s girls himself.

For Jeffrey Epstein and his famous friends, the Aughts were a simpler time, when the businessmen, academics, and celebrities who counted themselves among the playboy philanthropist’s inner circle could freely enjoy the fruits of his extreme wealth and connections.

Epstein’s little black book and flight logs read like a virtual Who’s Who: Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Larry Summers, Kevin Spacey, Prince Andrew, and Naomi Campbell all hitched rides on Epstein’s private planes. Socialites and distinguished scientists went to visit Epstein’s island in St. Thomas, and cavorted at epic dinner parties at his palatial townhouse—then the largest privately owned residence in New York, as he liked to brag. There, they picked at elaborate meals catered by celebrity chefs like Rocco DiSpirito, marvelled at Epstein’s opulent decor, and noted the pack of very, very young model-types with whom Epstein always seemed to surround himself.

But a darker story was going on underneath the glamour. In 2008, Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from an underage girl and quietly paid settlements to scores of alleged victims who said he serially molested them. But the girls kept coming out of the woodwork—in 2014, another young woman filed a lawsuit claiming that Epstein used her as a sex slave for his powerful friends—and that she’d been at parties on his private island with former President Clinton.

And just last week, yet another “Jane Doe” filed a suit in New York accusing Epstein and Donald Trump of raping her at a series of sex parties when she was only 13.

2016-11-15

Facebook Is and Has Been Silently Listening to Everything You Say — Here’s How to Stop It

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/facebook-silently-listening-stop/

By: Jay Symopoulos
Date: 2016-06-19

Did you know that your Facebook mobile app has complete access to your phone’s microphone?

Recently, an expert has come out to claim that Facebook may be listening in on your conversations. Kelli Burns, a mass communication professor at the University of South Florida, believes the app might be using people’s microphones to gather data on the content of people’s conversations.

Facebook admits that the app is capable of listening to what’s happening around it — but claims the feature simply identifies what people are listening to or watching as means of conveniently posting about it.

Will an anti-voter-fraud program designed by one of Trump's advisers deny tens of thousands their right to vote in November?

When Donald Trump claimed, "the election's going to be rigged," he wasn't entirely wrong. But the threat was not, as Trump warned, from Americans committing the crime of "voting many, many times." What's far more likely to undermine democracy in November is the culmination of a decade-long Republican effort to disenfranchise voters under the guise of battling voter fraud. The latest tool: Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls.

The data is processed through a system called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which is being promoted by a powerful Republican operative, and its lists of potential duplicate voters are kept confidential. But Rolling Stone obtained a portion of the list and the names of 1 million targeted voters. According to our analysis, the Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races.

Scores of legal memos, opinions, and letters from several agencies still being kept from public view

In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government began creating what has now become an "unprecedented buildup" of secret laws, and even the recent public backlash against them has not stopped widespread use of covert rules that impact Americans' everyday lives without their knowledge, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Department of Justice has kept classified at least 74 legal memos, opinions, and letters issued by the department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 2002 to 2009 on national security issues—from torture to mass surveillance—according to the report, The New Era of Secret Law (pdf), written by Elizabeth Gotein, co-director of the center's Liberty and National Security Program.

And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, which rules on intelligence collecting activities, is also hiding 25 to 30 opinions issued between 2003 and 2013 "that were deemed significant by the Attorney General." In fact, most of the significant case law written before National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations remains undisclosed.

Government surveillance of civilians has declined in large part due to National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations, according to the latest inspector general audit of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The report (pdf), released Thursday, which covers the department's activities from 2012 to 2014, finds that technology companies grew increasingly resistant to sharing information with the FBI after Snowden exposed the government's mass surveillance programs—and that the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved far fewer FBI requests for civilians' "business records" than it did before the revelations. The records were requested under the controversial Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the government relied on at the time to collect bulk communications data.

Between 2012 and 2014, the FISA court issued 561 orders known as National Security Letters (NSL), which subpoena records like email time stamps, senders and recipients, and other metadata without a warrant. In 2012, the court issued a nine-year high of 212 NSLs; by 2014, that had dropped to 170. By 2015, it was 142.

Why Isn't There Wall-to-Wall Coverage of The Kansas Crusaders?

https://youtu.be/lZIRpoGtggE

By: 2016-10-17
Date: Thom Hartmann

Thom compares the media coverage of the arrest of three men in Kansas who were plotting to harm immigrants with coverage of previous events perpetrated by Muslims. Is the difference in coverage a reflection of the media's views on race?

The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

If fossil fuel emissions continue as usual, droughts lasting as long as 35 years a "near certainty" in parched Western U.S. states

"Megadroughts" that last for decades are threatening to strike already parched Western U.S. states by the end of the century, a new study finds, with one model predicting that a drought lasting about 35 years may be a "near certainty."

A megadrought would bring back the devastating dustbowl conditions of the 1930s to California, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, but would last for a much longer period of time, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

"Using a combination of temperature and precipitation models," the Guardian reports, "the study predicts a 70 percent chance of a megadrought by the end of the century, should rainfall levels remain the same, with a 90 percent chance of an elongated drought should rainfall decrease, as most climate models forecast."

New research predicts rise of up to 9° Celsius within next several thousand years—surpassing most other predictions

Earth is the warmest it's been in 100,000 years, a new reconstruction of historical temperature data finds, and with today's level of fossil fuel emissions the planet is "locked into" eventually hitting its highest temperature mark in 2 million years.

The new research published Monday in Nature was done by Carolyn Snyder, now a climate policy official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as a part of her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University, according to the Associated Press.

Snyder "created a continuous 2 million year temperature record, much longer than a previous 22,000 year record. [Snyder's reconstruction] doesn't estimate temperature for a single year, but averages 5,000-year time periods going back a couple million years," AP writes.

"We do find this close relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases that is remarkably stable, and what the study is developing is the coupling factor between the two," Snyder toldNational Geographic.

AP further reports:

Temperatures averaged out over the most recent 5,000 years—which includes the last 125 years or so of industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases—are generally warmer than they have been since about 120,000 years ago or so, Snyder found. And two interglacial time periods, the one 120,000 years ago and another just about 2 million years ago, were the warmest Snyder tracked. They were about 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the current 5,000-year average.

With the link to carbon dioxide levels and taking into account other factors and past trends, Snyder calculated how much warming can be expected in the future.

In an interview with CBS, a leading physicist named Dr. Michio Kaku has blown the lid on secret experiments into weather modification. He described the experiments in great detail, and many have noted that they sound remarkably similar to the experiments that have been carried out at the HAARP facility in Alaska. In both cases, the weather modification has been achieved by shooting lasers and nanoparticles into the sky.

Dr. Kaku is not the only scientist to have attested to the feasibility of advanced weather modification technology. In a paper published in ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’, Professor Wolf Kasparian has described the process in some detail. He claims that laser beams can be used to create a strong effect of ice multiplication in thin cirrus ice clouds. This increases the optical thickness of the cloud and causes a corresponding change in the weather in the atmosphere.

According to Dr. Kaku, the government of the United States is not alone in its experimentation with this extraordinary technology, and he claims that weather modification has been attempted all over the world. However, when he specifically started to draw attention to governmental collaboration with this kind of experiment he was quickly interrupted by the CBS anchors who assured the viewers that these experiments were only ‘alleged’. This is a fairly typical response to the topic of weather modification among members of the press, most of whom seem to believe that stories of weather modification are too outlandish to be true.

However, the evidence for weather modification technology keeps piling up. The testaments of these two scientists can be added to the mass of testimony given by whistleblowers and independent researchers over the years. The United States government has tacitly admitted that they have been involved in this kind of project in the past but have always been very coy about admitting the full extent of these secret programs. It is hoped that as more and more people choose to speak out about weather modification technologies the veil of secrecy will finally be lifted.

This article (Physicist Michio Kaku talks about sinister weather modification to nervous CBS crew) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with full attribution and a link to the original source on Disclose.tv

The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

15 Years after Invasion, Afghanistan Is a Mess Nobody Talks About

Wait Til You Read about Ghost Soldiers and Other Fraud

This presidential campaign has endured debates on a number of mundane issues, including the size of a candidate’s hands, who is more dishonest, and which candidate has the better temperament. One thing nobody is talking about is the staggering outcome of the war in Afghanistan — and that’s probably just the way those profiting from this trillion-dollar fiasco like it.

This month marks the 15th anniversary of the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, making it the nation’s longest war. It now appears, based on evidence gathered by a federal inspector general, that the whole undertaking was, and remains, an incredibly expensive disaster that has actually made Afghanistan more corrupt than it was before the US invasion back in 2001.

In one of his most stunning disclosures yet, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed that, while the US Forces-Afghanistan reported that there were 319,000 Afghan soldiers, the actual number may only be 120,000. “Persistent reports” of discrepancies in Afghan troop strength “raise questions” over whether or not US taxpayers are actually paying for “ghost soldiers,” SIGAR John Sopko said in a letter to the Pentagon.

Bill Goodfellow, the executive director of the Center for International Policy, a nonprofit that promotes US foreign policy accountability and transparency, observes that despite reports like this, as well as the huge price tag and human cost, there’s been no discussion of Afghanistan in the presidential race.

“It doesn’t affect most people because the military is being staffed by economic conscription and the children of think tank analysts and journalists are not being drafted,” Goodfellow told WhoWhatWhy in a phone interview.

Clerk Note: Spot the parallelisms. The "No Plane Theory" (NPT) of 9/11 is a disinformation campaign, but among its nuggets of truth are that no planes crashed in Shanksville or the Pentagon. However a real plane was used to fly over the Pentagon very low. Therefore, the NPT theory was promoted and referenced exclusively at the towers, where video fakery and then holograms were meant to prop up the NPT claim precisely so they'd be discredited and get us to stop thinking about the real instances of no planes. Among its nuggets of truth are that imagery manipulation on 9/11 did happen, just not to the extent their NPT disinfo agents tout it. This article demonstrates another avenue of imagery manipulation and video fakery that Hollywood technology available to agencies foisted upon us.

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Pentagon Paid for Fake ‘Al Qaeda’ Videos

A controversial foreign PR firm known for representing unsavory characters was paid millions by the Pentagon to create fake terrorist videos.

The Pentagon gave a controversial U.K. PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda program in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.

Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.

The agency’s staff worked alongside high-ranking U.S. military officers in their Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters as the insurgency raged outside.

Bell Pottinger’s former chairman Lord Tim Bell confirmed to the Sunday Times, which has worked with the Bureau on this story, that his firm had worked on a “covert” military operation “covered by various secrecy documents.”

Bell Pottinger reported to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the National Security Council on its work in Iraq, he said.

Mainstream newspaper prints op-ed questioning 2014 Ottawa shootings

For 15 years I was paid to mainly find fault with the media, while on occasion celebrating well-crafted reporting, excellent think pieces, and the advent of independent journalism. A recent opinion piece that is worth celebrating is Prof. Graeme MacQueen’s op-ed in the Hamilton Spectator published on October 21st.

In the article (reproduced in its entirety below), MacQueen raises a series of questions rarely posed in the media concerning the Parliament Hill shootings in Ottawa in October 2014. What is truly impressive is not just the considerable depth of research that went into compiling the questions but also that these doubts about the official story of this event were printed in a mainstream newspaper at all.

Clerk Note: Cannabis then was a profit center for the for-profit prison system and in the war on drugs (e.g., war on minorities) was tool to disenfranchise voters, both those convicted of felons in states that don't allow felons to vote and those caught in the computer voter rolls purging of "felons" (and those with names similar to "felons" being purged from the voter registration list.)

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Police arrest more people for marijuana use than for all violent crimes — combined

On any given day in the United States, at least 137,000 people sit behind bars on simple drug-possession charges, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch.

Nearly two-thirds of them are in local jails. The report says that most of these jailed inmates have not been convicted of any crime: They're sitting in a cell, awaiting a day in court, an appearance that may be months or even years off, because they can't afford to post bail.

"It's been 45 years since the war on drugs was declared, and it hasn't been a success," lead author Tess Borden of Human Rights Watch said in an interview. "Rates of drug use are not down. Drug dependency has not stopped. Every 25 seconds, we're arresting someone for drug use."

When the good people at Marijuana.com went through the WikiLeaks dump of the DNC emails, they found something unrelated to the trove of damning information on the criminal Hillary Clinton. Within the mountains of email texts, was a paid segment by the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA), stoking fear within Washington, encouraging politicians to be wary of marijuana legalization.

** A message from Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America: While neutral on the issue of legalization, WSWA believes states that legalize marijuana need to ensure appropriate and effective regulations are enacted to protect the public from the dangers associated with the abuse and misuse of marijuana.

23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medicinal marijuana while Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and D.C. have legalized possession and recreational use. In the years since the state legalized medicinal use, Colorado law enforcement officials have documented a significant increase in traffic fatalities in which drivers tested positive for marijuana.

Beneath the misleading headlines and corporate spin, former president gave a robust argument in favor of single-payer system

Bill Clinton gave a robust argument in favor of a single-payer healthcare system on Monday night—but you wouldn't know it if you read the news, or paid any attention to Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Speaking at Hillary Clinton campaign rally in Flint, Michigan, the former president discussed the importance of expanding access to Medicare and Medicaid while lambasting the for-profit insurance model that overcharges people and reaps enormous profit.

"The insurance model doesn't work here," he said, "it's not like life insurance, or casualty insurance. It doesn't work."

"The current system works fine," Clinton continued, referring to President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA), "if you're eligible for Medicaid, if you're a lower-income working person; if you're already on Medicare, or if you get enough subsidies on a modest income that you can afford your health care. But the people that are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies."

"Why?" he asked, "because they are not organized, they don't have bargaining power with insurance companies and they are getting whacked." As Clinton explained, insurance companies assessing risk for a small pool of people "overcharge, just to make sure, and make a whopping profit off the people least able to pay."

"So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world," he continued.

Former President Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife at the University of Michigan Flint Campus, said that when it comes to public health, "The insurance model doesn't work." (Photo: Virginia Lozano /The Detroit News)

The case that set the standard on when police officers are justified in using excessive force is Graham v. Connor. But how that standard is applied needs deep consideration.

Another video. Another police shooting. Another Black person body dead on an American road.

Every person is innocent until proven guilty.

That is true for Betty Shelby, the police officer who shot and killed Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma on September 16, 2016.

It also should have been true for Terence Crutcher.

So what did Crutcher do to justify a death sentence?

Enough of these killings have happened to unarmed Black people that citizens can and should begin to ask more serious questions about circumstances that justify police officers using deadly force against citizens. (Photo: Screenshot/Police footage)

2016-11-08

Clerk Note: Freedom of the press was written into our Constition, of course that was back in the day when printing presses were heavy to move about and conceal. It is also written into our Constitution that when the elected officials vote/sign treaties and internal laws, they become the law of the land, our land, our nation. If not our military, then military tactics deployed by the police are enforcing commerce instead of the rights of the citizens with long-standing treaties. Don't we look silly that the UN is judging the USA for not living up to things. The UN should put some election inspectors on the ground in the USA, for when the exit polls deviate (by more that 2%) from the machine counted votes.

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It's Outrageous That I'm Facing 45 Years in Prison for Filming a Climate Protest

Filmmaker arrested for documenting last week's #ShutItDown protests speaks out

My name is Deia Schlosberg and I am an independent filmmaker and climate reporter. I was arrested while filming an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in North Dakota and I'm currently facing felony charges that I believe are unjust. I am a climate reporter; my specialty is following the story of how humankind is creating a grave problem for civilization by continuing to flood the atmosphere with greenhouse gases through the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial processes. I don't think there is nearly enough reporting on climate change nor the movement of people around the world working to lessen the impacts of climate change.

When I was arrested, I was doing my job. I was reporting. I was documenting. Journalism needs to be passionately and ethically pursued and defended if we are to remain a free democratic country. Freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, is absolutely critical to maintaining an informed citizenry, without which, democracy is impossible.

It is the responsibility of journalists and reporters to document newsworthy events, and it is particularly important for independent media to tell the stories that mainstream media is not covering. The mainstream did not break the story on fracking nor did it break the story about what is happening at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, nor the stories told in my most recent film with Josh Fox, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change. With this and other recent films, I have sought to portray and humanize the climate movement that is fighting for all of us with integrity, resilience and deep compassion.

Journalist and documentary filmmaker Deia Schlosberg, pictured here at the 35th College Television Awards, was arrested for filming those taking direct action against the fossil fuel industry. (Photo: Danny Moloshok / Invision)

11 Tactics Used by the Mainstream Media to Manufacture Consent for the Oligarchy

The mainstream media is aging and collapsing under the weight of its own hubris and arrogance. Now entirely formulaic in presentation and predictable in substance, the ‘major’ outlets of news, which are monopolized under only a small handful of corporations, serve the purpose of misleading the public on important issues and manufacturing consent for government and the oligarchs.

The public is still largely numb to this reality, and in a wicked catch-22 for modern man, many people are still addicted to the very media that serves as the primary weapon of social control against them. The tide is turning, however, and to help break the spell we bring you this comprehensive list of 11 tactics used against the public by the mainstream media to coerce consensus, divide, conquer, ridicule and stifle truthful or meaningful conversation about the state of our world.

Noam Chomsky reveals the political mechanics behind his gradual expulsion from mainstream media

Ralph Nader and leading linguist Noam Chomsky engaged in a much anticipated discussion in early October on Ralph Nader Radio Hour. The two raised questions about changing the media narrative in a totalitarian-like state, and how Chomsky got dismissed from the mainstream altogether.

“How often have you been on the op-ed pages of the New York Times?” Nader asked Chomsky.

For Chomsky, the last time was over a decade ago.

“[I was asked] to write about the Israeli separation wall, actually an annexation wall that runs through the West Bank and breaking apart the Palestinian communities… condemned as illegal by the World Court,” Chomsky told Nader.

Chomsky would later pen a similar piece for CNN on the 2013 Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But Chomsky has never been interviewed on the network; nor has he appeared on NBC, ABC or CBS.

2016-11-07

Clerk Note: If a US citizen is paying attention, they'll see the dark underbelly of political pedophilia creeping up in the alternative news (oh, no; never in the mainstream news) to smear both campaigns. The new Clinton emails with trips through serial sexter (with under age girls) Anthony Weiner give the FBI director some CYA, because how could this be missed and how could they save face if Trump wins? The point is, both Clintons may have pedophile skeletons. Certainly the court case against Trump, as well as his modeling agency, Miss USA Pageant, and Miss Teen USA Pageant suggest possibly human trafficking, if the Russian connection doesn't bring him down. Thank goodness for the Green Party.

Media have breathlessly covered a new letter from the FBI saying the agency is looking into newly discovered emails surrounding Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server as secretary of state. But as outlets continue to obsess over Clinton, they are ignoring the many actual lawsuits and scandals associated with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Media Breathlessly Hype FBI Letter

Media Hype False Idea That The FBI “Reopened” Clinton Email Investigation. After Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) claimed that a letter FBI director James Comey sent to congressional leaders meant the FBI had “reopened” its investigation into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, media adopted the spin even though the letter did not actually state that the case was being re-examined. [Media Matters, 10/28/16]

Journalists Obsess Over FBI Letter On Sunday News Shows. Political reporters appearing on Sunday news shows October 30 failed to ask surrogates for Republican nominee Donald Trump about new investigative reports regarding Trump sexually “humiliating” one woman and assaulting another, lying about charitable donations, and withdrawing an offer to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to be his vice presidential running mate. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos was the only host to challenge a Trump surrogate on any of these reports, while other solely discussed Comey’s letter to congressional leaders. [Media Matters, 10/30/16]

Trump Faces At Least 75 Pending Lawsuits On A Variety Of Matters

USA Today: “At Least 75 Of The 4,000-Plus Lawsuits Involving Trump And His Businesses Remain Open.” “The number of unresolved cases” regarding Trump and his businesses, campaign, and other organizations is “unprecedented for a presidential candidate,” according to a USA Today special report. The newspaper’s “ongoing, nationwide analysis of state and federal court records” found that “at least 75 of the 4,000-plus lawsuits involving Trump and his businesses” remained open two weeks before Election Day. From the October 25 article:

The Taboo Subject of Class in this Election

http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/10/14/taboo-subject-class-election/

By: Jeff Schechtman
Date: 2016-10-14

The one subject that seemingly gets overlooked in today’s political discussion is the issue of America’s class divide and the rise of White Trash America. It’s a divide that has been in the making for a long time. Nancy Isenberg, the author of “White Trash,” tells WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman in this week’s podcast that, at best, we’ve had a “democracy of manners.” Not only has White Trash become politicized, low income Caucasians have moved to the center of the debate.

Isenberg explains the history of this issue and that even Ben Franklin hoped that the size of the country would flatten out the class system. But it never happened.

In fact, the explosive ideas of eugenics and of a “cognitive class” have never really been far from the surface.

Today’s politics seem to be bringing all of this out into the open — even if we’ve been reluctant to talk about it.

The house speaker knows that if the GOP loses seats in Congress, Bernie Sanders could become the Senate Budget Committee Chairperson.

Paul Ryan is famously described as what Republicans think a smart person sounds like. But sometimes the speaker of the House outsmarts himself.

Ryan lectured Young Republicans in his native Wisconsin last Friday, and the national news media were invited to listen along. The speaker wanted to make the case for Republican voters to turn out and back GOP congressional candidates, even if they can’t stomach their party’s scandal-plagued presidential ticket. Implicit in Ryan’s argument was the suggestion that a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate could be counted on to obstruct Hillary Clinton’s supposedly “liberal progressive” agenda.

But in a question-and-answer session following his unremarkable speech, Ryan inadvertently made a case for liberals and progressives to turn out in big numbers in order to elect Democratic candidates in the fight for control of the Senate.

As he outlined his Wall Street–friendly proposals for tax reforms that would more rapidly redistribute wealth upward, and for budgets that would put vulnerable Americans at greater risk while increasing burdens for middle-class families, the speaker explained that his agenda can advance only if Republicans control both the House and Senate. “If we keep control of the Senate in the Republican hands…a nice guy named Mike Enzi from Wyoming is the Senate budget chair and he helps us get these budgets to the president’s desk, gets these tax bills through,” he said.

On the other hand, Ryan warned, “If we lose the Senate, do you know who becomes chair of the Senate Budget Committee? A guy named Bernie Sanders. You ever heard of him?”

? House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks during an appearance with a group of College Republicans at the Masonic Center in Madison, Wisconsin, Friday, October 14, 2016. (AP Photo / John Hart)

2016-11-04

Clerk Note: This is a major skeleton in Trump's closet that should have precluded him from politics. It is so glaring that the media missed this, it acts as a signal flare to issues of media and their weaknesses that such could be overlooked. Shows the extent of the con game to get Clinton elected.

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"We All Knew About the Trafficking"-The Untold Story of Trump Model Management (Part 1)

Authors Note-The Wade Turnbull I attributed to the Twitter posts was incorrectly identified as an individual with the same name. The Wade Turnbull quoted-who I did not speak with prior to this publication-is the owner of the website Cargo Collective. My apologies for the error.

Back in July of this year, an article written by author Michael Gross about Trump’s modeling company was posted on the Daily Beast. It didn’t receive much fanfare, nor did these tweets-but lets take a look at them for a moment-

@harrysiegelI've worked with Trump Models "Casting" we all knew of the trafficking

These Tweets came from the account of Wade Turnbull. His remarks echo the sentiments of many who have worked with Trump Model Management. Turnbulls remarks are notable in particular because of their timing-They were made a full two months before the Mother Jones article outlining the immigration fraud, financial exploitation and generally deplorable working conditions at Trump’s agency were made public.

It should also be noted that Mr. Turnbull, judging by his Twitter feed, is no fan of Hillary Clinton. This is simply his impression, based on his experience working with this particular agency. And he is far from alone in his views.

A GOP strategist explains why the Republican Party is about to break in two

Is the Republican Party falling apart? Steve Schmidt — a GOP consultant who worked on George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004 and ran John McCain’s campaign in 2008 — thinks it very well might be.

“There will be the alt-right party; then there will be a center-right conservative party,” he told me on Thursday. “I think what you’re gonna see is [Trump campaign CEO and Breitbart News chief] Steve Bannon monetizing 30 percent of the electorate into a UKIP-style movement and a billion-dollar media business.”

Schmidt was ahead of the curve in analyzing Donald Trump’s rise, arguing to me in August 2015 that, contrary to the beliefs of many experts, the GOP establishment had “no ability to stop” Trump because actual Republican voters no longer paid any mind to what their party elites thought.

So I got in touch with him for his thoughts on what’s happened since, and he unloaded on Trump (“manifestly unfit in every conceivable way”), Republican Party leadership (“political cowardice on a massive level”), and evangelical leaders standing by the nominee despite everything (“literally the modern-day Pharisees”). This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Emails include list of "hits" on Bernie Sanders and attempts to spin media coverage in Hillary Clinton's favor

WikiLeaks released the third installment of its cache of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's hacked emails early Tuesday, revealing the inner workings of the Clinton camp's efforts to spin news items and influence reporting; their strategies to take down the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); and the often cozy relationship between Podesta and corporate lobbyists.

For instance, one email featured Gordon Giffin, a lobbyist for TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, asking Podesta personally to secure a seat for him at the White House state dinner with Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "Giffin is a [so-called] 'Hillblazer' who has contributed or raised at least $100,000 for Clinton and her joint funds with the Democratic Party," Politico observed.

Another exchange shows top aides struggling to spin contentious moments, including a statement Clinton made last February about her vote for a 2001 bankruptcy bill that favored credit card companies. Clinton said she was pressured to vote for the legislation by women's groups.

"She said women groups [sic] were all pressuring her to vote for it. Evidence does not support that statement," Clinton campaign senior policy adviser Ann O'Leary wrote.

The emails reveal prominent Clinton supporters outside of the campaign were frightened by the unexpected success of Sanders' campaign and often provided advice on how to defeat him. (Photo: ABC/flickr/cc)

One in 40 Americans can't vote because of a criminal conviction. But the rules aren't exactly fair

On July 7th in Staten Island a few months back, Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the death of Eric Garner, sat in court conferring with his family. He was about to agree to plea deal on drug and weapons charges that would send him to prison for a while.

The term – four years – had already been settled. But some specifics were left up to him. In particular, he was given a choice as to which of his many drug charges he could swallow.

"They're telling me I've got to cop to weed, crack or heroin," he said. "But since weed isn't a felony, it's got to be crack or heroin."

The United States is one of just four countries in the world that enforces post-release restrictions on voting. Spencer Platt/Getty

In exclusive sit-down with The Nation, former presidential contender opens up about his successes, fears, and the fight going forward

Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign proved to the corporate media and political elite that the progressive ideas he championed—healthcare for all, free college tuition, progressive taxation, a living wage—are not fringe ideas. In fact, as the senator explained in an exclusive interview with The Nation magazine, this is what most Americans want.

"I believed from my heart of hearts that the ideas I was talking about were not courageous, radical, bold ideas," he told editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and national affairs correspondent John Nichols. "The ideas that I was talking about are what most Americans would support if they had the chance to hear these views, which they do not under normal circumstances."

"You could watch CNN for the next 14 years, and you're not going to hear a discussion about the need for a single-payer health-care system," he continued. "You're not going to see a critique of the drug companies, and you're not going to hear much discussion about income and wealth inequality. My view was that if we could get out to the American people, get the exposure, make the personal contacts, we would do well."

His primary concern entering the presidential race, he said, was "not want[ing] to run a campaign that would be counterproductive to the progressive vision that so many people in this country share."

The George W. Bush White House ‘Lost’ 22 Million Emails

For 18 months, Republican strategists, political pundits, reporters and Americans who follow them have been pursuing Hillary Clinton’s personal email habits, and no evidence of a crime has been found. But now they at least have the skills and interest to focus on a much larger and deeper email conspiracy, one involving war, lies, a private server run by the Republican Party and contempt of Congress citations—all of it still unsolved and unpunished.

Clinton’s email habits look positively transparent when compared with the subpoena-dodging, email-hiding, private-server-using George W. Bush administration. Between 2003 and 2009, the Bush White House “lost” 22 million emails. This correspondence included millions of emails written during the darkest period in America’s recent history, when the Bush administration was ginning up support for what turned out to be a disastrous war in Iraq with false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and, later, when it was firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons.

Like Clinton, the Bush White House used a private email server—its was owned by the Republican National Committee. And the Bush administration failed to store its emails, as required by law, and then refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking some of those emails. “It’s about as amazing a double standard as you can get,” says Eric Boehlert, who works with the pro-Clinton group Media Matters. “If you look at the Bush emails, he was a sitting president, and 95 percent of his chief advisers’ emails were on a private email system set up by the RNC. Imagine if for the last year and a half we had been talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails set up on a private DNC server?”

Most troubling, researchers found a suspicious pattern in the White House email system blackouts, including periods when there were no emails available from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. “That the vice president’s office, widely characterized as the most powerful vice president in history, should have no archived emails in its accounts for scores of days—especially days when there was discussion of whether to invade Iraq—beggared the imagination,” says Thomas Blanton, director of the Washington-based National Security Archive. The NSA (not to be confused with the National Security Agency, the federal surveillance organization) is a nonprofit devoted to obtaining and declassifying national security documents and is one of the key players in the effort to recover the supposedly lost Bush White House emails.

U.S. President George W. Bush holds a news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington July 15, 2008. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

2016-11-02

The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

How Much Faith Do You Have in the Vote Counting Process?

http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/09/23/much-faith-vote-counting-process/

By: Jeff Schechtman
Date: 2016-09-23

In an age of digital and online voting, there is no way to know if the announced results of any given election faithfully express the intent of the voters. This is not only because digitized voting machines can be hacked or manipulated. The fact is, modernday ballots are not available as public documents — even after elections.

Dr. Jonathan Simon, executive director of Election Defense Alliance, tells WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman that this is a risk we should not be taking when so much is at stake. Simon makes a data-driven argument that our computerized voting system is frighteningly vulnerable to corruption and partisan sabotage — at a time when corruption and partisanship are rampant. He argues that we have sacrificed transparency for convenience and speed, and that nothing short of votes counted observably and by hand can undo the damage to democracy.

2016-11-01

The Media Can’t Get Its Story Straight on Election Hacking

http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/10/17/media-election-hacking/

By: Dan Engelke
Date: 2016-10-17

In August, the corporate media was falling all over itself with breathless coverage on how Russia is interfering in the US election. Back then, stories citing experts suggested that voting machines were vulnerable to tampering that could change the outcome of the vote. A month later, something curious happened.

By September, government officials were doing all they could to tamp down those concerns, and the media duly reported their reassurances.

Should the public be comforted that election mischief will be homegrown?

The articles, usually citing active government officials, serve a dual purpose in reassuring the public: First, there is no way Russia can hack the election, despite cyber hacks in the Illinois and Arizona voter registration banks. Meanwhile, the message is also to insist Russian President Vladimir Putin is still giving orders to disrupt US cyberspace. This latter message culminated in the Obama administration publicly blaming the Russian government for trying to influence the election in early October.